


Not for These Ears

by SunnyD_lite



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-07
Updated: 2008-05-07
Packaged: 2017-10-07 19:20:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunnyD_lite/pseuds/SunnyD_lite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Growing up as a genius is hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not for These Ears

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thanks to my beta b&gt;spiralleds. I never thought I'd write THIS character.

"Albert, what happened to you?"

He'd tried to slip in before his mother saw him. She'd been so proud of his new clothes; clothes now ripped and muddied by Joe Connor and his gang. He'd just survived your basic after school special, surrounded by hulking bullies and being pushed around like a pinball. Normally, he just ignored them, but the teacher had put them all together in a group for a joint grade.

"Working as a team will help all of you," she'd said.

He didn't know what she meant. His report card always had a column of 'O's for Outstanding and Joe's… didn't. Being grouped with him would have a disastrous effect on his grades. He'd asked to be put in another group, but Mrs. Gilbert a.k.a. Mrs. "Play Nice" wouldn't listen.

During the planning time in class, he'd been bombarded with Joe's drivel. Albert had no choice but to deflate Joe's dream of being an astronaut "just like the Six Million Dollar Man". He'd informed Joe that if he kept getting a string of 'Unsatisfactory's, he wouldn't get into the sixth grade let alone into orbit. It wasn't complex math, merely a calculation that even Joe should have been able to figure out.

Maybe that's why Joe had already been held back a year.

"Honey! And your new corduroy blazer!" His mother knelt, trying to brush off the dried mud. "Who was it this time?"

It wasn't a demand. She'd given up on that. Pushing herself up, she opened the door of the new goldenrod refrigerator to get his after school snack. Genius had to be fed after all.

Not that telling her who it was this time would do any good. There was the world of adults and the world of children and one couldn't influence the other. But someday he'd be an adult. Then the world would listen to him.

"I was helping one of the students with a project and he didn't like the answer I came up with." That was true. The other kids never liked what he had to say.

"Albert, I'm sorry we weren't able to get you into the advanced program." She sighed and handed him his milk and Oreos. "But your father's job is here, and not everyone has a job these days. You have to remember that being smarter is a gift, and what have I told you about flaunting your gifts?"

"Don't make others feel bad," matching her, he mouthed her oft repeated phrase. Why he should care how others felt she'd never explained.

"When you're among your equals, you can say whatever you see fit. They will respect your gifts."

He took comfort in that. No one at his school, including the teachers, was his intellectual equal. But someday…

##

The strains of Bon Jovi's latest hit - something about being half way there - provided the soundtrack as Albert stormed into his office. A shared office. But at least it was only two of them, even if the boom box wasn't on his side. While working on his masters, four of them had to share a closet down the hall from the labs. He had hoped that grad school would be an oasis of sanity. Another expectation that didn't pan out.

"Gregory, turn that down." He stared at the small office. "And your stuff's on my desk! Again!" Albert knew his tone was sharp. "Didn't you read the memo about shared space?" A memo he'd written in anticipation of just this problem. Management wasn't rocket science but why couldn't any scientist manage it? He'd had to take his own measures.

Gregory looked over the top of the latest physics journal; the one featuring another article by the annoying Canadian. He'd have to review it and send off his own letter, pointing out all the errors in McKay's thinking. Not that it was tit for tat. Merely guiding the misguided. It was almost a public service.

Being a Doctoral candidate was moderately better than the idiots he'd done his masters with, but still no one was willing to understand that his way of doing things was empirically better. They glossed over points that he could clearly see leading to disaster, or chaos. Someday he'd find an audience for his warnings.

Gregory pushed a pile of mail towards him, grunting around his usual power bar breakfast. Who would eat those things voluntarily?

Albert grabbed his steel M.I.T. letter opener, which triggered a snort from his officemate. Gregory'd called that an affectation, even though _he_ used the edge of his slide rule for the same purpose. As if anyone needed slide rules when there were computers. Albert slit the edge and pulled out the letter. Another grant announcement. And yet another rejection by his so-called peers. Ludicrous.

Albert's projects were denied for spurious reasons. A more successful candidate had implied that his people skills needed work. Finally the mystery of why other people's feelings mattered had been solved: because they could deny his work. Except he had to reject that theory once he'd met McKay. If that man could get grants, then no people skills were required.

There were rules that should be followed. Rules of meritocracy, or at least order. But apparently his mother's belief in a fair future was a myth. Like finding peers. He glared at Gregory's pile of ungraded lab reports that were sliding onto his desk. Only one more year, then he could apply for post-doc work. Maybe then he'd find the appropriate audience for how things should run.

##

It was an elite mission. Doctor Weir had called them 'the world's best and brightest'. Not that he was surprised by that characterization, but he'd been dismayed to learn that such accolades were rarely properly bestowed. Maybe this time was different.

He had been passed over for Chief Science Officer, but that was only because he was an American. With Weir and the military, the IOA required some other country to be listed. Once they got to Atlantis, he was sure that they would listen to what he had to say. Finally, Kavanagh was amongst his peers.

**Author's Note:**

> TamingtheMuse prompt # 102:Thus Spoke Zarathustra   
> Specific quote:_"There they stand," said he to his heart; "there they laugh:  
> they understand me not; I am not the mouth for these ears. _  
> From Thus Spoke Zarathustra
> 
> According to IMDB and Gateworld, Kavanagh in canon did not have a first name. I chose Albert.


End file.
